(13.1) Den of Good

Chapter 13, Part 1

By the time I got my shirt back on and got out the door, Angel was nowhere to be seen. Heading to the elevator proved fruitless, as the lights told me it was working it’s way back up from the first floor. As I ran past a window on my way to the stair, I took note of the sun, realizing that my next plan to get to the bottom of the hotel wasn’t going to work out.

Running back to my room, I grabbed the few things I would need for this trip. I all but flew down the stairs and out the door, knocking into a rather attractive bellhop that I filed away as a potential late-night snack.

Hopping into a cab, I gave him my destination and settled back to start working my disguise. It had been a long time since I had used a glamour and the look I was going for only vaguely familiar, so it took a few tries to get my hair and facial features right. I used the spell to give myself a day or so of facial hair and age myself a few years. The driver, oddly enough didn’t notice any of this until I started working on changing my voice.

“It’s amateur night.” I explained. “I’m a magician. Tada!”

He wasn’t amused and spent the rest of the trip trying very hard to ignore me, saying something about “getting all the loons” after dropping me off a few blocks from the abandoned lot. The walk gave me time to figure just what I was going to do once I got inside.

Angel had mentioned that they had extensive files. If they were computer based files, it wouldn’t be too difficult to hijack a nerd to get me what I needed. On the other hand, if her badge wasn’t a coincidence, the chances of them digitizing the droves of files that they had when I worked for them were pretty slim.

Deciding that my best bet would be to find a file room or a library, I made my way to the vacant lot and realized that I had no idea how I was going to get inside. The one time I’d seen it, people had just randomly appeared.

Unless they had Sci-Fi transporter technology, there had to be a simple entrance-exit. Magic couldbe responsible for teleporting them in an out, but if I knew The Brotherhood, they wouldn’t waste that kind of talent to door duty.

So I did the only thing I could think of.

No, I didn’t blow it up, I started walking forward. Not every problem I encounter can be solved with violence.

Turns out my instincts were right. About 10 feet onto the property, the world started getting hazy, like looking at the horizon in a desert. When everything stopped wavering, I took in my surroundings.

A square box that could hardly classify as a building stood before me. There were no windows, just a single unlocked door. The inside was nothing spectacular at first, being nothing but an empty room and a stairway that went down.

And down.

And down.

Just when I thought I was doomed to an eternity of stairs, it finally ended in the brightest lit place I’d ever been. The light seemed to emanate from the everywhere, leaving nowhere to look but down the center of the hall. It was one of those escalator walkways, surrounded on both sides by large black panels.

It wasn’t until I stepped off on the other side and noticed the two men standing guard that I started to get a bad feeling about this plan. These just happened to be the same apparently giant-blooded men that I had seen cart Dmitri off the night before. I started to wish I’d brought my sword with me, realizing that magic may not be enough to get me out of this place if things didn’t go smoothly.

They greeted me with a smile however, one chuckling lightly under his breath as he addressed me. “Where’s your cane old timer?”

“I left it in the office.” I lied.

“I thought you never went anywhere without it,” said the other one.

“Well, I wanted to try a new look,” I said, motioning to the outfit I wore.

“Yeah, stick to tweed. You can’t pull off silk,” said the first one, touching a little laminated card to the door. I felt the thrum of  magic as he did this, realizing that this must be how the scry said they were 5 miles underground. 

“I’ll do that.”

“Have a good one,” he said, turning his attention to a monitor. I peeked over his shoulder and got a glimpse of 4 skeletons with various implements of destruction hanging from them. They looked to be talking, which is when I looked back down the hallway and noticed a group of people heading towards us on the walkway.

It had been a good thing I left my sword at the hotel then. As the X-Ray would’ve given me away in a heartbeat.

I opened the door, feeling triumphant when Giant One started addressing me again.

“Oh, Benji. Angel was just through here and she looked pissed. Anything we should worry about?”